Complete Works of Emile Zola (62 page)

“You’ve no idea what a frightful life I’ve been leading these past two years. Every one of my operations failed, and I found myself face to face with terrible exigencies. To preserve my credit, to conceal my forgeries, I have been daily obliged to commit others. I no longer dreamed of making money, I only thought of defending myself and escaping the galleys. I take heaven to witness that had I been able to get back the money that was lost, I would have reimbursed everyone, and then lived as a law-abiding citizen. But the enormous amount of interest I had to pay crushed me; I resold at a loss the properties I had acquired; in spite of my struggles, ill-luck has clung to me and weighed me down to the very depths of ruin. Today my liabilities are considerable, I cannot meet this fortnight’s bills, and, for me, a suspension of payment means penal servitude. If the authorities were ever to examine my papers, I should be at once arrested and put in prison.”

Marius almost felt disposed to pity the wretch. Douglas sat down again and resumed dejectedly:

“After all, though, this is the end. I’ve confessed to you and I know that you’re about to hand me over to justice. Let it be so, for my position is no longer bearable. You’re right, I’m a scoundrel and I ought to be punished.”

Marius did not stir. He was reflecting, uncertain how to act. One fear stayed him, he did not wish to be mixed up in the matter in case he should be called as a witness, and thus lose precious time which belonged to his mission. Moreover, it was not his business to denounce the notary. There was no escape now for the man, he was fatally on the road to his punishment, and would fall of his own accord into his judges’ hands.

“Well! why do you hesitate?” asked Douglas. “You know all. I’ll await here the police officers you are going for.”

The young man rose from his chair, and tore up the documents containing his name.

“You are a wretch,” he replied, “my judgment has not changed. But there is no need for me to assist justice, which will know how to punish you without my help. Your chastisement will come of itself.”

And he walked out of the office.

Here is the end of this episode: On the morrow, Douglas, unable to meet his engagements, took to flight. Marseille was panic-stricken at the news. Several fortunes were compromised, and it was impossible at first to gauge the full extent of the disaster. It was a kind of public misfortune. With the dismay of those concerned was mingled the astonishment of all honest persons; they could not forgive the notary the hypocrisy with which he had deceived a whole city during several years.

Douglas was caught and tried at Aix, in the midst of a terrible feeling of irritation. He accepted his position with rare coolness. Without his assistance the authorities would never have succeeded in unravelling such an intricate affair. The court had to pronounce on more than nine hundred deeds infected with every kind of forgery, varied in so many ways that the human mind could not have conceived any combination of which the forger had not made use. The misdeeds laid to his charge were so numerous, were complicated with so many details, and affected so great a number of victims, that it would have been impossible to have seen clearly amidst the chaos without the assistance of him who, after imagining and putting his crimes into execution, could alone unravel the skein of them. Douglas set to work with indefatigable zeal and surprising truthfulness to clear up the disorder of his affairs, and to fix his own position, as well as those of his creditors and debtors.

He continued to energetically defend himself against the accusation of theft. He repeated that he was an unfortunate speculator, and if justice and circumstances had permitted him, he would have retrieved his affairs as well as those of his clients. He seemed to be accusing the court of binding his hands, of preventing him repairing the harm he had done.

He was condemned to penal servitude for life and to be publicly exhibited in the pillory at Marseille.

CHAPTER IX

HOW AN UGLY MAN MAY BECOME HANDSOME

IT was now more than two months since Marius and Fine had returned to Marseille.

On leaving the notary’s office, the young man had to own to himself that up till then he had been wasting his time, and that so far he had not obtained the first franc of the fifteen thousand he required for Philippe’s safety. After all, he knew only how to show his love and devotion; he felt he had a soul too upright, a mind too loyal and too generously artless for him to be able to procure in a few weeks the large sum he was so despairingly seeking. He had always acted like a child. The deplorable incidents with which he had recently found himself mixed up, the loves of Armande and Sauvaire, Douglas’ hypocrisy and forgeries, had shown him life under a terrifying aspect which discouraged him. He retreated instead of advancing, he feared, in making another attempt, to fail and even compromise himself, by falling again into the hands of rogues who would take advantage of him. In his suspicious state, he saw nothing but snares around him. Such tender hearts, ignorant of evil and desirous of good, are predestined to be wounded and made to bleed at every hour of the day.

Yet the month of December was drawing nigh, and it was necessary to make haste if Philippe was to be saved. No further mercy would be shown, and the condemned man would be undoubtedly fastened to the infamous pillory. At that thought, Marius shed tears of impotence and weariness. He would he could have freed his brother by some Herculean task; if he had been put to the proof, he would have undertaken to pierce the prison wall with his nails, to have scraped and crumbled the stone away beneath his fingers. That laborious exploit would not have appeared to him a hard one and he would have succeeded in it although he wore his fingers to the bone. But the thought of the fifteen thousand francs terrified him; once it was a question of money, of taking humiliating steps or of engaging in more or less equivocal dealings, he went off his head and felt incapable of conducting the least enterprise to a successful conclusion. This explained the artless confidence which had taken him to Armande and Douglas.

All hope, however, was not yet dead within him. Thanks to those same qualities which were his weakness, to his kindly heart and upright mind, he always returned to thoughts of self-reliance and hope. The lessons which the ignominies of life had taught him, could not prevent him still believing in the helpful sympathy of others.

“I have more than six weeks before me yet,” he thought. “It’s impossible that I shall not find some true friend by then. There’s no reason for despair.”

He would certainly have fallen ill with the anguish, the hopes and disappointments of his task, if he had not had a comforter at hand who smiled at him when most depressed. A strong friendship had grown up between him and the Cougourdans. He went nearly every day to see Fine and spent long evenings in her society. At the beginning they talked together of Philippe; then, whilst not forgetting the poor prisoner, they conversed about themselves, about their childhood and future. These were chats quite free from all restraint which rested them after the fatigues and anxieties of the day, and gave them fresh courage for the morrow.

Every morning Marius, little by little, began ardently to long for the evening, in order to find himself back in Fine’s little room. When he had a gleam of hope he ran to tell it to his friend, and when he had met with some disappointment he also hastened to relate it to her and be consoled. It was only there, in that clean and tidy attic which smelt so sweet and looked so gay, that he felt at ease in the midst of his tender sadness.

One evening he persisted in helping the young woman who was making up some bouquets for the morrow’s sale; he took a childish delight in removing the thorns from the roses, in gathering up the pinks into slender bunches, in delicately taking one by one the violets and marguerites and handing them to Fine. From that time he became a florist every evening between eight and ten. The work amused him, he said, and quieted his anxieties. If ever his fingers touched Fine’s when handing her the flowers, he felt a gentle warmth rise to his face; the strange uneasiness, the penetrating emotion he then experienced, was no doubt the sole cause of his sudden inclination for making bouquets.

Marius was certainly a simpleton. He would have been much surprised, even hurt, if anyone had told him that he was falling in love with Fine. He would have exclaimed that he knew he was much too ugly to dare to love the young woman, and that, moreover, such a love, born and developed in the shadow of his brother’s misfortune, would have seemed to him a crime. But his heart would soon have protested.

He had never lived much in the society of a woman, and had let himself be caught by the first affectionate glance bestowed upon him. Fine, consoling and encouraging him, ever ready with a caressing smile and a warm pressure of the hand seemed to him, at first, both a sister and a mother whom heaven had sent him in his affliction. The truth was that unbeknown to himself this sister, this mother, was becoming a bride, a bride whom he already loved with all the tender and devoted ardour of his heart. And this love was bound to spring up between two young people who wept and smiled in company. Chance had brought them together and their goodness was uniting them. They were worthy of each other, they possessed the all-powerful sympathy of devotion.

For some time past a sly smile, which Marius had failed to notice, had been playing about Fine’s lips. She guessed the young man loved her long before he himself had become aware of his love. Women have a special gift of penetrating this sort of secret; they can read in their lovers’ eyes and see into the innermost recesses of their souls. The flower-girl, however, was careful to hide her blushes; she schooled herself to remain Marius’ cordial friend, and not to open his eyes by a warmer grasp of the hand. To see them each evening, seated opposite one another, with a table covered with roses between them, one would have taken them for brother and sister.

On Sundays Fine went to Saint Henri. She felt a sort of sympathetic pity, a compassionate friendship for Blanche. The poor young girl who was soon to become a mother, and whose life was for ever blighted, became every day dearer to her; she saw her remorse, her tears of regret, she assisted at her disconsolate existence, and sought by her visits to assuage her misery. She brought her bright smile to that little house by the sea, where Blanche was weeping as she thought of Philippe and her unborn babe. It was like a holy pilgrimage for the flower-girl and she accomplished it religiously. She started off about midday, after luncheon, and remained till dusk with Mademoiselle de Cazalis. In the evening, as night was falling, she found Marius waiting for her on the sea-shore, and they returned together to Marseille on foot, arm-in-arm like a young married couple.

Marius tasted pure joy during these walks. Sunday evening became for him the reward of all his efforts of the week. He waited for Fine by the sea, forgetful of his sorrows, feverishly watching for the young woman’s arrival; then, when she was there, they smiled at each other and returned slowly in the soft shadows of the gathering night, exchanging words of friendship and hope. Never did the young man think the road long enough.

One Sunday, Marius arrived early. As a feeling of delicacy prevented him calling at Blanche’s house and so adding to her grief, he sat down on the cliff which rises near the village, and took patience in watching the blue immensity spread out before him. He remained there nearly two hours, lost in a vague reverie, in thoughts of love and happiness which softly lulled him. The immense horizon moved him; unconsciously, his love for Fine rose from his heart to his lips; the sea and sky, the infinity of the waters and the air affected him, opened his soul; he beheld but Fine in the boundless sea, he heard but her name in the dull and regular murmur of the waves.

The flower-girl arrived and seated herself on the rock beside the young man, who took her hand without speaking. Before them was spread the sea and heavens, both of a soft pale blue. Twilight was falling. Profound serenity was alike enfeebling the last sounds and the last rays. Thin rosy gleams in the west were casting their delicate reflections on the rocks of the shore. There was a breath of tenderness in the air, a great quivering voice which grew softer and softer. Deeply moved, Marius kept his friend’s hand in his, as he continued his dream. His eyes fixed on the horizon, on that vague haze where heaven and sea mingle together, he was smiling sadly. And in a low voice, and quite unconsciously, his lips gave utterance to the thoughts of his heart.

“No, no,” he murmured, “I am too ugly.”

From the moment Marius took her hand, Fine had been smiling in her sly and tender way. At last her friend was going to make up his mind to speak; she guessed it from the deeper look in his eyes, his tighter grasp. When she heard the young man say he was too ugly, she seemed surprised and annoyed.

“Too ugly!” she exclaimed; “but you are quite handsome, Marius!”

Fine had put so much feeling into the cry which had escaped her, that Marius looked round and clasped his hands, as he gazed at her anxiously. She, feeling that she had abruptly delivered up the secret of her heart, lowered her face, which became covered with blushes. She remained thus, speechless and embarrassed, during some seconds. But she was not the girl to withdraw from the complete avowal of her love; she possessed too much frankness and sprightliness to indulge in the hypocritical comedy which most young persons in love go through on similar occasions. She courageously raised her face and looked straight at Marius, who was trembling.

“Listen, my friend,” she said to him. “I wish to speak frankly. Six months ago I hardly thought of you at all. I considered you to be ugly, no doubt I had never really looked at you. Today, I think you quite handsome. I don’t know how it has happened, I assure you — “

In spite of her resolution, she hesitated a little, and sudden blushes again covered her cheeks. She stopped short, unable to tell Marius plainly that she loved him. She knew the young man’s timidity and had spoken solely to encourage him.